Seton's LEAD team won First Place Overall at the University of Maryland Fire Protection Engineering Contest on Monday. The winning team, "Grilled to Perfection" members were Bryanne Lewis, Shannon Ward, and Faith Wheeler.
The LEAD teams traveled to the ATF facility warehouse in Beltsville for "Burn Day" where they competed against other local high school teams, and their classmates. All groups had minimal requirements for window, doors, furniture, and carpet. Seton shined at this event and was the only school to use electronics.
The house was 16" x 24" and 9" tall. Each house was set on fire and evaluated on the effectiveness of the fire detection system and suppression of the fire. The Seton team used a sensor to detect IR waves from the fire. They built the circuits and wrote the program that the microprocessor followed to turn on the pump and an audible alarm. A can on the side was filled with water and had a copper pipe with a submersible pump on the end. Inside the house there were 3 rows of copper tubing with small holes used to disperse the water and extinguish the fire.
Click here to see a video of a test run of the group project!